Bearing assemblies are used in a variety of applications. One type of known bearing assembly is a radial bearing, which includes rolling elements in the form of cylindrical rollers, with a cage to guide the cylindrical rollers as they roll between an inner bearing ring or shaft and an outer bearing ring. FIGS. 1-3 show the configuration of one known radial cage 10 that retains rollers 12 in a radial rolling bearing with inner retention. This allows the rollers 12 to rotate freely within the pocket 24 formed between two axially spaced apart rims 14, 16 and webs 18 that connect these rims 14, 16. The cage inner retention is provided by radially inner retention tabs 20a, b, c, d, that extend from the webs 18 in the circumferential direction. These tabs 20a, b, c, d are located between a centerline of the pockets 24, which corresponds to a centerline CL of the rollers 12 when they are centered in the pockets 24 and a contact area with the inner bearing ring. Here, the cage inner retention tabs 20a, b, c, d contact the rollers 12 at a small circular segment height from the bottom of the rollers 12 where they contact the inner ring and fail to provide proper guidance for the roller within the pocket 24. Outer retention is provided by tabs 22. Proper guidance of a roller 12 along its length is crucial to prevent the roller 12 from skewing. However, this known inner retention allows the roller ends to not be contained within the pocket 24, permitting skewing by pivoting of the rollers 12 as shown in FIG. 3, where the roller 12 has been able to lift up out of the inner retention area and pivot out of alignment with the pocket 24 centerline. In these know arrangements, skewing is in the range of plus or minus two degrees. Skewing can cause the overall bearing assembly to walk in an axial direction and also allow the rollers 12 to drill into the cage 10 at the end of the pocket 24. This can result in cage failure as well as debris being generated due to the drilling into the cage 10 which can lead to spalling and ultimately failure of the bearing.
It would be desirable to provide a cage with improved rolling element guidance and retention elements that further reduce skewing of the cylindrical rollers within the pockets of the bearing cage, and provide increased strength at the connection area between the webs and the rings.